hackUnderground
by BlackDragonFly
Summary: Based on nearly everything. It's after Legend. As usual, weird things begin happening. So who to step in but the legendary dothackers... and some Americans?
1. And then there was

_Author's Note:_ Yeah, before I forget one of these.  
Now; this is my _very first_ fanfiction in god knows how long -aside from the other fanfic, but that's with EvilHanyou. Yes, yes, they are both "Mary Sue" like deals, wherein my friend Mii-chan and I are... well... in. Don't kill us, because we absolutely just... would not die. Yeah. So, anyway, I seriously do _not_ own any **.hack** characters. Nor do I think I ever will. However, I do own myself, and Mii-chan owns herself. So you can't steal us. That would be kidnapping.

* * *

"Kite's down! Balmung, heal him. Don't give me that look; do it!"

Balmung clamored through his bag of items, grumbling about how he was running out of items. When he finally came across a Resurrects, Kite had become a ghost; and then, he was whole again. Granted he was out of SP, but that didn't stop him from jumping at the chance to at least maim his attacker. He grumbled again, stealing a glance at Shugo, far off in the distance. He felt as though he needed to be with them, but Kamui had stolen the chance before Balmung even had one. In fact, he noticed the woman looking in his general direction just then; and scowled when she laughed. No doubt Kite had died again.

"_Balmung_-san!"

"Oh, all right, dammit!"

There. Now he was down to five Resurrects. Kite owed him big time. Out of the corner of Balmung's eye, he spotted his next target: a Mad Grass. Dear god, did it get any easier? He didn't understand why Kite was having problems; and then he remembered that Kite no longer had the bracelet, and his levels had mysteriously disappeared when he'd lost it. That was right. But why in the world were Shugo and his team wasting their time in such a low level?

A half of a slash destroyed the Mad Grass. He rolled his eyes at Orca when Kite leveled up. "Oi, don't you think…"

"_Mii-chan_! This is insane! Tell me _why_ we are in the Japanese server again?" An extremely short Wavemaster, garbed in a light blue dress with midnight cuffs and Russian-looking hat, and shoes, and a seemingly beginner's staff, paused when she nearly bumped into Balmung. Her eyes traveled up his armor and she snickered, "Well, well. Look who we have here."

"Sierra? Where did you –Oh, there you… wow."

"Oi, let's just go." Sierra turned around quickly, shooting a sharp glare at a very confused Balmung, before disappearing over the hilltop.

The fight had finished sometime within that appearance, and Orca slapped Balmung on the back to bring him back to reality. "Who was that?"

"Wakaranai. She… That voice…"

"Eh?" Kite managed to wander over, healing himself a few times. "She did sound familiar, Balmung-sama."

"Yeah… So, are we going to that dungeon or what?" He took off at a run, grumbling the whole way about strangers and how annoying they were.

But this is Balmung, so what else would you expect?

The dungeon was littered with parties that day, almost packed to the brim. _He_ had set the rules, so Reki stood at the entrance to the dungeon with a glare written across his features. And _he_ was standing behind the enormous mass of players with his party, just aiming to enter and win yet _another_ one of his own contests. _Honestly_, Reki growled, _can't he just get to his duties and stop this nonsense already?_

He shook his head. Balmung would never change. The green light on his marker glowed and he let the next group in.

"_Sierra_! Ugh, not again!" A Heavy Blade stood before Reki, taller, and stared at him. "You haven't seen a Wavemaster in light blue, have you?"

He blinked, shaking his head. "Er… Not that I know of. Dou shite?"

"I seem to have lost my party," she sighed, defeated. "However, you get used to it sometimes, I guess."

Boy, didn't that sound familiar. "Gomen-ne."

"Iie. It's not your fault that she wandered off. Sierra has a habit of finding 'hot avatars' and tailing them like a lost duck. It's a good thing she's at a high enough level to work by herself because she sure as hell doesn't give any thought of –oi!"

Sierra seemed to appear out of nowhere before Mii-chan's eyes, poking the girl on the boob. "Random habit," she sang.

Reki stared at the duo when his green glowed again. "Ano… You can go in now…"

"Eh?" Sierra blinked, looking Reki from head to toe with an evil grin. "_Nice_! Aw, Mii-chan, how nice of you too look out for me like this!"

The Heavy Blade glared at her friend. "Sierra, this is an event. Come on, let's go."

"Ah! Demo –Mii-chan!" She stole another glance at Reki and shot him a peace sign as they disappeared into the dungeon.

He watched them go with slight annoyance –they were American; that enough was obvious by their accents and actions. Aside from Hotaru-chan, Reki hated Americans. Someone cleared his or her throat above him while he glared at the ground beneath his feet, and his head lifted to see Sanjuro-san and Ouka. When he looked at the beeper, the light was blinking green at him. Ah, he'd waited too long.

"Gomen-ne, Ouka, Sanjuro-san. Go on, onegai."

Sanjuro snickered, winking at Reki as Ouka stepped in. "Keep an eye on that Wavemaster, eh? She seems suspicious. Balmung-san told me to tell you."

Reki glanced at his boss over the heads of others as best as he could. Balmung was engrossed in a conversation with Kite, both looking awfully pensive. Orca was left out of the conversation, rubbing the back of his head and chatting with a cheerful Magi, who stood beside him. Reki felt a slight twinge of jealousy but snipped at it before it grew. He'd found he'd been having awful thoughts about his co-worker, although she was Kamui's assistant, and he absolutely _hated_ Kamui. Not to mention that her avatar was a male…

A tiny Twin Blade tugged on his sleeve, pointing to the beeper. He'd done it again. And, once more, he apologized. Balmung was _not_ going to be happy.

Indeed, some odd ten minutes later, Balmung arrived at the entrance with the others. He was scowling, lost in thought himself. Reki stared at the older man, resorting to stabbing him with his large book of information before he received any sort of a response. And even then it was a grunt. Orca sighed, prodding Balmung himself.

"Hey," Kamui yelled into his ear, "your subordinate wants your attention, _Baltan_!"

He glanced in Reki's direction, growling at Kamui, who had retreated to Magi's side, sticking her tongue out at him. He reminded himself to poke her mercilessly back at the office, and then tease her about the little girl that she really was. But Reki came first. "Nan desu ka?"

"_Finally_," he muttered under his breath. "What is this about this Wavemaster? And why am _I_ supposed to keep an eye on her? You _know_ she's from… America."

_Still on that deal, eh Fujio?_ Balmung thought more than once about slapping the younger man across the face and reminded himself to perform the action later. "I have meetings to attend and the like. I do not have the time to watch her. And there's something not right about her."

Kite was staring at Shugo enviously, and continued to do so as he chipped in. "That wasn't even her login name."

"Sierra and Mii-chan…" Balmung glanced at Reki's hand. "Oh, come on you two. It's our turn. Reki, when this is over, look into those two, okay?"

"Hai."

He always had to do the dirty work.


	2. Stay Away

_Author's Note:_ I don't own these people, nor does Mii-chan. Abby-chan owns herself, as well. As said before: you would be kidnapping us, and that's just bad, so don't attempt to steal us.  
As for the names... I'll have to make a note at the end so that people don't get confused. Because that's definitely going to happen, whether I like it or not. This chapter takes place in two different locations: New York, and Japan. And I'm writing this as my friends and I being _much_ older than we really are, and in the future nonetheless, so it's going to be the strangest thing.  
Once again, the people who own _.hack_ and all of their stuff own all of that. Amy, Abby, and I do not. My disclaimer has been typed, so I will not be sued. I have no money, anyway, so it's not like you'd win anything.

* * *

Chapter Two: Stay Away

Somewhere much further away from the Japanese server, Sierra awoke to a bright morning as she removed her head set. She'd left the front door open all night and blinked when she stared into the face of her best friend, Abby. Taken back, and turning down her music, she squealed.

"Another one? What now?"

Abby glared at the woman with a sigh. "Sierra, you left the door open again."

"Hai," she replied, only appearing half guilty.

In fact, Sierra was often like this. Abby would scold her for messing something up again and she would constantly act like a child in order to cover herself. Either that, or she really was still a little girl inside of that head of hers. A robin sang from the oak tree outside of her house, the same one she'd lived in since nineteen ninety five. Which currently proved Abby's theory that Sierra would never grow up –aside from living alone.

One of the speakers sang a quiet tune and Sierra glanced at the computer screen. "Oi, I gots an e-mail from Nyahan."

Abby sighed again. "Sierra, I came here to give you this."

The older woman held in her left hand a device that looked an awful lot like the headset next to Sierra's hand. Sierra, however, knew that this was far from the real case. There was something about that headset –beside its new purple tones –that set it apart from others. In which Abby explained in a very long breath of air that it was a newly developed set that would allow the user to access the music they wished to listen to as they were playing. She also went into detail as to how this worked but Sierra stopped her in mid sentence and wrapped her greedy fingers around the equipment.

"It's so beautiful… And it's mine to test?"

"We designed it for you. You're our only tester –have you forgotten that already?"

"Shouldn't have. I'm the only one who took the job." She grinned, jumping to hug her friend tightly. "You and Mii-chan are my saviors."

A resigned smile spread over Abby's face and she hugged back, the front door and use of her full name on The World having been forgotten… for a moment, anyhow, because then she returned her reproachful look upon the woman. "Sierra, Amy tells me that you're still using your name on The World…"

"Eh?" She blinked, staring at Abby's face. "A –Ah… Yeah, still am! I mean, after…"

"Yes, Sierra, I know. But even still, don't you think it's even in the least bit dangerous?"

She shook her head, grinning wider. "'Sides, I don't think I could be anyone else anymore."

After sharing a hurried breakfast, and then nearly pushing Abby out of the house (making sure to close the door behind her 'mother' figure), she hopped back into the world. There was no way that she was leaving this new toy for tomorrow.

* * *

Fujio sighed, prodding buttons left and right. His keyboard was only so big but he sometimes wished that it were much, much larger. There were only so many buttons to press, and none of them were as easy as _search_ or _employ_, like the ones in their office inside of The World. Next to him sat a very lunch-deprived Akito, whose stomach was grumbling about how unfair it was that he was only paid so little a week for all of the work he did around this building. And that he was still single.

"I don't understand why…" he was saying.

Fujio was too involved within his work to even think about being single, or care about Tomitan's worries. In fact, when his desktop went black for a period of thirty seconds, he almost fell from his chair. And then it returned with a note that read: _You are far from allowed to sneak into this computer, as it is protected deeper than you could imagine._ Well, so much for hacking.

"How are things coming along over there?"

He shook his head, mostly to wake himself from the trance, before he answered. "It would be going a lot better if you were helping."

"Ouch. No, I've got something else to do. Do you want lunch? I'm starved."

"Noticed that. Hai. If you could…"

His boss had already run from the room.

Fujio sighed again, leaning back to stare at the ceiling above. Then, he thought about Akito and his problems with being single. One thing was for sure; Akito was the type of man that all women swooned over, even if just for a moment. He was tall, nearly six foot, with short black hair and chocolate eyes, and mostly wore dark clothes. Akito barely ever followed the rules; it was just something that he had never been good at. Perhaps it had been because of the way he had grown up –of course, that was something Fujio had never heard of.

He grumbled as the memory of his own childhood snuck like a demon into his mind. It wasn't until he heard a faint tune emanating from his speakers that he was brought back to reality with a punch. There was a girl staring at him from the black screen, a small girl in a red gown with jet-black hair and blue eyes. She was crooking her finger at him, and subtitles on the bottom of the screen read: _Come with me, you silly boy. I can take you home. You will be happy with us._

Akito chose that moment to return. "Did you want… Fujio-kun?"

He had gone blank, mind devoid of all thought, and was reaching for his headset like a zombie. It didn't take the older man twice to run inside and turn the power off for his computer.

"_Fujio_," he annunciated.

For a few moments, Akito resorted to shaking him violently. He had a feeling that something was going on, that the strange girl had not been Fujio's doing. He had had to blink a couple of times to realize that had been a sort of a calling, and she was trying to pull anyone she could with her. Akito himself would have fallen if he had not been so careful.

A scream from across the hall was the only thing that tore Fujio from the screen. Akito was continuously shaking him, then dropped him like a rag doll onto the computer chair and made a beeline for the next office –Fujio was quick on his heels. Inside he saw Asako, a deranged look written over her features, standing over Shibayama-san with a plastic knife. There was already a small cut bleeding from the administrator's right cheek.

Akito had run inside, and grabbed Asako's arms in his hands. He ignored the consistent protests from her mouth, motioning for Fujio to help Shibayama.

"We found something," Shibayama muttered as they made for the main office. "About those girls."

"Nani?"

"The two that Tomitan was having you look up. He had asked Asako, as well."

Fujio's eyes became slits; he reminded himself to give Tomitan-san a lecture about how he could handle his own work. Then it dawned on him. "So then… What happened?"

"She went mad. I'm not sure though… One moment I was working on my own report and the next I was avoiding her blows to my head. Her computer screen…" She trailed off, acquiring a distant look, trying to remember.

"Was there a girl?"

Shibayama blinked, with a nod. "Dressed in a red dress…"

So he had _not_ been the only one. "What did she find before that happened?"

"Her login," Shibayama answered. She paused, turning around to face Akito, who had snuck up behind them. "Avalon."

Akito stopped short, his face unreadable. The older man growled, pushing his way past the two, breaking off at a run towards the office of the one man who would have any idea of what was going on. Indeed, Carl stood at the doorway in wait. Although Carl was around fifty something years old, he appeared much younger, with only a few lines crossing his forehead. He wiped his glasses free of marks as the three arrived, Tomitan at the lead. When Fujio saw whom Akito had run to, he growled, and turned to walk away. There was no way he was talking to that American.

The CEO stared at Shibayama and Tomitan expectantly, clearing his throat when neither spoke. "There's still a stick up that boy's ass, isn't there?"

"Sir, she's back."

"Nani?" He opened the door and led them to sit in two very comfortable armchairs. His office was no bigger than their own though, which meant that he had two times less the amount of clutter they did. "Who is back, Tomitan?"

"S-Saura," he responded, catching his breath. "And she's brought someone with her."

Carl broke into a smile. "So, things are about to get interesting again."

"_Sir_! Asako…"

"I know this already, Shibayama. Do not worry –I have already hired a hypnotist to come and check on her."

_A hypnotist… So, measures have already been heightened…_ "She nearly got Fujio, sir."

"I am aware of this, Tomitan. Do not worry; I am taking care of everything. But who, did you say, that she brought with her?"

Akito didn't answer. He stood, grabbing Shibayama's hand, before running from the office with an extremely loud, "Fuck you!" trailing in his path. Carl watched them disappear down the halls with a smirk.

"What was that all about?" Shibayama begged when they had finally reached their offices once more.

Fujio had already knocked Asako to the ground, who was unconscious and waiting to be lifted away. "So, Tomitan-san, the verdict?"

"We're leaving to get Asako some help. Now."

Shibayama pulled on her coat without question, residing to follow the two as they left the building in a rush. She glanced at one of the windows at the side the building when Akito peeled out, and she swore she saw a very pleased Carl cracking his knuckles, watching as they vanished around the side of the building.

* * *

As for the names:  
**Tomitan Akito (Tomi-san, 'to-san)**: Balmung  
**Sakurahoshi Fujio (Fuji-film, Re-ku)**: Reki  
**Shibayama Saki (Shiba-san)**: Kamui  
**Saito Asako**: Magi  
**Carl**: CEO of Japanese division for some area. Unknown World name. 


End file.
